métro zombies

everytime i ride the métro - which admittedly is almost everyday - or even the bus - i'm struck by the blank looks on everyone's faces. and it's very rare that you catch someone else's glance, and if you do, which in the U.S. may elicit a smile - here it's not that way. people do not smile at one another. (i want to write métro moron for the alliteration, but these people aren't stupid. just blank. like zombies. i don't even want to go to the part of my imagination where they start murmuring "BRAAAAINNNNNSSSSS." flippin' creeps me OUT.)

what's disturbing is i feel, or even catch, myself slowly morphing into a métro zombie. of course, for me, there are those moments when i'm walking around paris à pied, or taking the bus - and i'll turn a corner and i'll see the top of the tour eiffel - or run into say - the lou-ver, when exiting the métro and i'll just smile to myself and think, "dude, i'm livin' in PARIS." and then i am smiling and advertising the fact that "i don't come from 'round these perts."